Ever tried to knock down a price and get a better deal? Unless you’re one of those lucky people who has a natural gift for haggling, then the chances are you’ve never even considered asking for a lower price.

‘Side gig’ has become a popular term to describe those little extra jobs that can help you earn a few extra quid to tide you over before payday, put towards a savings goal or use as spending money if your main salary is all already accounted for.

If you’ve run into financial difficulty in the past then it might have left its mark on your credit file: defaulted payments are visible on your record for a number of years, and might lead to you being turned down if you apply for further credit in the future.

Cash machines are disappearing from the streets of Britain at a rate of 300 per month. Now, debit cards have, for the very first time, overtaken cash usage – with 13.2 billion transactions to 13.1 billion.

We’ve gone from a nation of savers to a nation of borrowers – taking out credit cards, dipping into our overdrafts and using payday loans to combat ever-rising prices and to fund our 21st century lifestyles.

The monthly phone bill is one of those expenses that can seem to slip under the radar – you realise that you need more data each month, so you let them up your tariff by a fiver… you upgrade to the latest model and your plan goes up again.

It feels like a catch-22 situation: you can’t take out credit cards, loans or mortgages without a good credit score, but in order to build your credit score you need to use a credit card or make loan repayments.